


In Every Hour, You

by Areiton



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cas is confused, Castiel-centric, Chuck is God, Hunting, M/M, Pining, Protective Dean Winchester, Teenage Dean Winchester, Time Travel, Young Sam Winchester, dean is in love, non-cannon, season 6 fix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:39:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7013128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He asked for a sign. A sign that what he was doing was right. <br/>And now he's staring at a 19 year old Dean Winchester, and oh, God. This is not what he meant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Give Me A Sign

**Author's Note:**

> Season 6, the first time I watched it, hurt.   
> The second and third time, it broke my heart and made me mad.   
> In THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, Cas asked for a sign. And this is how I fixed all the things that bothered me about season 6, and Castiel refusing to trust Dean.   
> Also, fluffy angel angst because yeah. <3

  
**Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path. You have to tell me, you have to give me a sign. Give me a sign.**   
**Because if you don’t I’m gonna ch—**   
**I’m gonna do whatever I. Whatever I must.**   


 

Dean used to think I served Heaven. Maybe he does again. I don't know anymore--there is so much I don't know anymore.  
But once, he knew.  
Once, I stood before a broken, desperate man and told him how to summon an archangel, and he smiled at me.  
Once, I lived for that smile.  
And he knew. He knew that I would defy heaven. For him. Without me saying it, he knew that I served him.  
I sit on the bench in a park, a snow crusted heaven full of green and peace and I am tired.  
So tired.  
Curiously weightless--like confessing everything to a father who doesn't listen has helped some. Not healed the wound of all my betrayal. But. Broken it. Lanced  out all of the worst poisons.  
I still do not know what to do. I still have no idea how to proceed. If trusting Crowley is right.  
If it is, why am I losing Dean? That is the question I stumble on. Again. And again.  
He has become my compass point, the true north by which I plot my course.  
But.  
He was gone.  
And I was adrift in a world with no guide. A father who abandoned me, a brother who would kill me, and a human who forgot me.  
There was only one who remained and maybe I was desperate, or lonely, but I am still not sure I was wrong.  
If trusting Crowley meant I could allow Dean his tiny piece of normal, was it worth it?  
Then, it was easy--he was already lost to me and I was risking nothing.  
But now.  
“Please,” I whisper to an absent father, and I am not even ashamed of the way my voice breaks and shudders. The desperation that echoes in my empty heaven.  
 _Give me a sign. Show me I'm on the right path._  
I don't know what scares me. That I am not on the right path, or that I will continue on it, despite everything. That my silent father will remain silent.  
I told Dean that nothing is broken. That this plan, foolhardy even to my ears, is not a gamble.  
As if I am not too aware that I will break the world, if I am not very careful.  
I let out a sigh and it sounds bitter, even to my ears.  
Stupid and prideful, to think my absent god would answer me, now. When he ignore his firstborn sons and the righteous man, and all of the prayers through the eons.  
What am I, in the grand scheme of his plan. A broken angel, forgotten and abandoned by his human.  
I blink.  
And heaven is gone. I'm sitting in a diner, greasy and nausea inducing in the garish colors. 


	2. July 4, 1998

I blink again. For a moment I wonder if this is Raphael. The archangel is not above dirty tricks, and I have been remarkably undefended, the past few hours.

But there is nothing about the place that says, _Raphael._ Nothing that says _danger._ So I do what has become instinctive, when I’m on earth. I close my eyes, and stretch my grace, looking—

I find him, alarmingly close, and even more alarmingly different. His soul feels _different._

And I hear him, half a heartbeat later.

_“Cas?”_

The boy—because he is a boy—who slides into the booth across from me tugs a girl in behind him, but it’s absent minded, and she’s ignored.

He looks—my stomach plummets and I feel, for the first time in all my long centuries and eons of life—like I’m going to throw up.

“Hey, dude, take a breath,” Dean orders, leaning across the table.

That’s the same. Of course, that’s the same. He’s still caustic and caring and completely comfortable giving an angel orders.

“Hey, sugar, go get Sam. Hurry, would ya?”

“Sam is here too,” I force out, and I feel the girl’s confusion, and then, he leans back. Away from me. Studying. I can _feel_ him studying me.

Dean complains, so often, that I stare. That it’s creepy. That it’s just not done.

But he does it too, when he thinks I won’t notice, or when he knows Sam won’t.

“This is it, isn’t it?” Dean murmurs, and I force myself to look at him.

Force the sick stomach twisting sensation to go away.

_Oh, father, please no. This isn’t what I meant. Please please please, no._

The last time I saw Dean Winchester was in a small Oregon town, where he killed Eve and let two dangerous boys loose on the world, because that’s Dean. He cares about the innocent, even when they prove to be not nearly as innocent as he wanted to believe. I left him, knowing he was beginning to doubt me.

The Dean Winchester sitting across from me, though.

He is decades younger. His face is smooth and untroubled, an easy grin turning up his lips, his hair shorter, and messy and his eyes, oh _father,_ his eyes.

I have never seen Dean like this.

_Happy._

I know him, every emotion and flick of feeling that he can’t hide in those brilliant green eyes of his.

But I have never seen him so ridiculously, unabashedly _happy._

“Here,” he says, nudging a cup of something dark and hot—coffee—at me across the table. “Drink it. You feel better with coffee.”

My eyes narrow, and his grin dims, a little. Like he _knows._

Sam interrupts us before I can demand answers, because Sam has made an art form of interrupting us, and apparently being thrown back through time by a silent father with a twisted sense of humor hasn’t cured the younger Winchester of _that._

_“_ Dean, what’d Sara—” he cuts off, his voice climbing in surprise and glee. “Castiel!”

They know me.

These boys who are so like my boys, but are not _my_ boys, who are so young and happy and innocent—they _know_ me.

“Dean,” I say, and it’s a question, almost begging him for something that I can’t quite wrap my head around. Sam makes a low noise, deep in his throat, and slides into the booth.

I press against him without ever making the choice to do so.  Because it’s comfortable and warm and steady and everything else seems to be spinning.

_Why. Why this? I asked for a sign. How does this—_

_“_ It’s July 4th, 1998, Cas,” Dean says, and even though I know. Even though there was no other thing it could be, this—god. It hurts.

“When are you coming from?” Sam asks, and the question is so easy, that I know he’s asked me that before. Phrased like that.

How many times have I disrupted their lives, how many times have I been thrown by my father into the past?

“Dean,” I say again, and I’m shaking.

“It’s his first time, Sammy.” Dean says, and Sam makes a startled sort of noise, deep in his throat.

The brothers are silent, and even looking at the cup of coffee instead of them, I know that they’re discussing me. That Dean is giving Sam an order. That’s confirmed when Sam huffs in frustration and slides out of the booth. “Don’t let him leave until I get back. I haven’t seen him either, Dean.”

“You’ll get to see your boyfriend, Samantha. Now do what I say.”

“She’s gonna be pissed.”

That does draw my attention up, because Dean was with a girl, here, before I landed in the middle of his life.

_Why. Father, bring me home._

“Does it look like I give a fuck?” Dean says, flat and empty.

Sam huffs again, and then he retreats and an awkward silence settles over us.

“I’m sorry,” I say, soft and low, and I don’t know what I’m apologizing for.

Ruining his date with that girl. Being a problem he has to deal with. Everything that has left me so confused, these past few weeks.

Maybe all of it.

Maybe none of it.

“Shut up, Cas. If you don’t know by now—” he trails off, and shakes his head. “You don’t know, though. Do you? This is the first time.”

I stare at him, and he takes a breath. “When are you comin’ from, Cas?”

“2011.” I whisper and he nods, something flickering in his eyes. “How long have I—?”

Dean shrugs, and nudges the coffee at me. “Drink it, Castiel.”

Obediently, I take a sip, and some of the shaking tension in my muscles, that I hadn’t even realized was there, eases.

And.

Oh.

I make a noise, and Dean laughs, but it’s different than the last laugh. It’s lower and husky, and private. I let my gaze flick to him over the cup I’m now holding with both hands.

“Dean,” I murmur. “It’s _good.”_

_“_ Yeah, Cas,” he breaths, “I know.”

There’s something there. In his word and in his eyes, that I need to chase down. That I need to examine.

But he turns away and the moment is loss.

“How long—well. I can’t tell you that.”

I frown, but he answers before I can form the question. “Your rules, Cas. Now finish your coffee. Sammy will be back soon.”

He’s silent as I drink the coffee, and I look around, nervous under his unwavering scrutiny.

Dean doesn’t watch me, not like this.

I watch him.

Too soon, the coffee is gone and he plucks the cup from my hands and signals for the check. Then he’s pulling me from the booth and nudging me toward the door, and he’s still not talking, still watching me.

“Dean,” I say, feeling vaguely ridiculous. I sound like a one of his records, stuck on repeat. He sighs, pushes me out the door in front of him and then tugs me into an alley.

For a second, I flounder in the wide open space and then his arms around me, yanking me so close I can barely breath and I don’t know what to do, what to say, so I stay still and silent, because I don’t know what to _do_ with this Dean.

My Dean doesn’t hug. He doesn’t hold me like if he lets go, I’ll vanish.

He doesn’t cling to me and mutter things I don’t understand into my hair.

_Father, what are you doing? Why am I here?_

“Missed you, Cas,” he mutters, and finally let’s me go. I stand there, awkwardly and he huffs a laugh. “Right. Shit. We’re never gonna be on the same page, are we?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, honestly, confused.

He laughs, and this time it’s not as brittle. It’s the kind of deep laugh that tells me I’ve done something right and he’s happy. “I know, dude. C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, curious pricking under my skin, despite the bone deep knowledge that it doesn’t really matter.

“It’s fucking Independence Day, dude. We’re gonna go blow shit up,” he says, giving me a wide, infectious smile.

I feel a vague flicker of alarm at that, but I ignore it because he looks so happy, and because I can’t sense any danger, at the moment.

Whatever we’re blowing up, I don’t believe it will be a monster, nor a demon intent on stealing either brother’s soul.

For the moment, that’s enough.

I follow Dean out if the alley, because I follow Dean. That, in a world that is suddenly strange and unfamiliar--more even than normal--is my touchstone. My familiar. His broad shoulders wrapped in leather a few feet ahead, and a smirk that is younger but his when he looks over his shoulder at me.

Sam is standing next to the Impala, almost bouncing in place as we approach and Dean huffs a sigh, “Sorry, Cas.”

Then the younger Winchester is throwing himself at me, chattering questions and Dean is grinning, even though I see him try to hide it.

“Alright, Samantha, let the angel breath,” Dean finally says and I jerk back a little, giving him a startled stare.

He actually laughs.

_Bastard._

“Yeah, Cas. We know you’re an angel. You blew the lid on that particular secret the first time we met.”

My frown deepens and Sam sighs from the backseat. “I told you, we should start write a fucking cue card.”

“Language,” Dean snaps, half-hearted, and Sam snorts. I barely refrain from doing the same. “I’m not letting him read this shit on a cue card. You’ll calm your ass down or you can go back to the room while I get him caught up.”

There’s something sharp and unbending in his voice, and I blink because I’ve heard Dean a lot of ways with Sam, but never quite like this.

They glare for a moment, and then Sam grits out, “He’s mine, too, Dean.”

Dean jerks the Impala off the road, and shoves out of the car, and I sit there for a moment, watching him pace away in a cloud of dust and the slowly dying light of the summer sun. In the backseat, Sam huffs a sigh. And that’s all. Neither of us move, and Dean doesn’t return, and—

_Why? I asked for a sign, and I don’t understand, why am I_ here?

“Go talk to him,” Sam says, finally. Resigned. “He’s not gonna come back til you do.”

I glance back at Sam, but he’s staring out the window, and his face is drawn and sad.

I know that look. It’s how Sam always looks, when he feels like he is on the outside of something. How he looked, so often, during the apocalypse, when Dean was still so angry that he had trusted Ruby and drank demon blood.

But now—I don’t understand it now.

I suppose it is another thing to add to a long list of things I don’t understand.

I step out of the car and walk to where Dean is crouched, staring at the grit and gravel, his shoulders slightly hunched.

“Dean?” I ask, softly, and everything is in that question.

We’ve always been able to communicate with very little. And from the way his shoulders drop and he huffs, a small laugh, _that_ has not changed in the slightest.

“One day, we’re gonna be on the same page. You promised.”

I blink at him and he straightens.

“Ok. I’m gonna tell you what you said to tell you. That’s it. Don’t ask for more, cuz I’ve already promised you I won’t tell you anything else.” He waits, and I nod, a little hesitantly because I don’t understand. I don’t understand why Dean knows more than I do, or why I trusted him enough to not mess up the timeline, or why he looks torn between morose and elated. I don’t understand why Sam is angry and Dean is tense and their frustration with each other centers around me.

I’m used to not understanding the Winchesters, even after so many years with them.

But these are not _my_ Winchesters, and any sense of understanding I _do_ have is long gone by the wash of confusion.

“You’ve been moving through our timeline.”

“For how long?” I ask, my voice urgent, and Dean gives me this look. The one that is equal parts pity and pissy.

“You’re not at full strength. You can heal, some. Fly, some. But you can’t move through time. You don’t know who is moving you.”

Yes. I do. _Why?_

“And you’re stuck here, until whatever wants to move you decides your done in this time.”

I stare at him, and something like panic wells.

I have no desire to leave Dean, or Sam. But the thought that I _can’t._

He reaches out, and touches me, before I can test the truth of his statement. “Don’t, Cas,” he says, softly. “Just stay with us. Stay with me.”

I don’t understand this, this strange welling feeling inside me that feels impossible tight and full, like a sharp ache in my chest. I press my fist there, and Dean watches me. Wide eyed and intent and searching.

“How long, do I usually stay?” I ask, and let my grip on my grace loosen.

Dean relaxes, a sudden release of tension, and that happy smile is back.

“Once, you stayed for two weeks. But, usually it’s a few days.”

I cock my head, and stare at him. “What do you do, when I’m not here?”

“We hunt, Cas. What the hell do you think we do? Sammy goes to school. Dad drinks. I hunt.” He pauses, and then, softly. Softly enough that I could choose to ignore it, he says, “And I wait, for you.”

I inhale sharply, and he laughs. In the darkness—sometime, while we talked, the sun finally set—he blushes, and looks away from me.

“What am I, to you?” I ask, softly. So softly.

Dean looks back at me, too sharp and quick. “C’mon, Cas. Sam is an impatient little shit.”

“I heard that, you jerk!” Sam shouts back, and Dean grins, the tension draining away.

“I wanted you to, bitch!”

He nudges me toward the Impala, and I allow myself to be steered.

But I don’t forget that he didn’t answer my question.

 

He drives us to the middle of nowhere. A big, empty field. Sam is teasing Dean about setting another field on fire, and both of them are laughing, happy.

Rare enough that I stare, and I don’t even care that Dean hates when I do that.

He isn’t paying attention to me anyway, he’s pushing Sam around as they set up a big box of brightly shaped tubes, and Sam is laughing at something Dean says too low for me to hear.

They’re happy.

Why the hell am I hear, to witness Winchester happiness?

Is it because if I follow through on my ill-conceived plan, I won’t see them like this again? I’m not so vain as to think they will never _be_ happy again. Only very sure that I will not be welcome to view it. Betrayal, after all, is a serious thing, and Dean will never forgive me, not for this.

_Show me what to do._

“Cas,” Sam shouts, and I blink from my thoughts to find both brothers watching me. “Brood later. C’mon!”

We spend hours there, while Dean and Sam light the sky with color and fire and paint the air with their laughter.

And it's good.

It's peaceful.

I watch from where I am braced against the Impala. Watch the way that Dean quietly corrects his brother when Sam is setting up the fireworks incorrectly, watch the way they move around each other in that familiar, intimate way. The way Sam looks, quick and searching, to Dean for approval.

I forgot, somehow, how good they are together. How effortless and easy and good.

They lost this, when I left Dean with Lisa.

Not completely. But it was--is--different.

I wonder if it will ever be this again.

Eventually the fireworks burn out and Sam’s energy burns out when he realizes he won't coax more than one beer out of Dean.

Which leaves only us. Dean perched cross-legged on the hood, drinking slow and steady through a six pack. It's not the kind of mindless intent to find oblivion.

It's peaceful.

Everything about this is peaceful.

Everything about _Dean_ is peaceful.

“Why are you not hunting?” I ask, when Sam is asleep in the back of the Impala and the stars are bright and cold and endlessly turning.

Dean rolls his head to look at me. Gives me a curious quirk of his eyebrows. “We are. There's a ghost. That's why we were talking to Sara this afternoon. Sam thinks he's found the bones, so tomorrow we’ll salt and burn and head back to Bobby’s until Dad sends a new case.”

I frown. “Where is he?”

“Dad?” Dean asks, a little startled and I nod. He shrugs, “Hunting. Out west, I think. We try to keep close to Bobby, gives us a place to fall back and Sam will stay there for senior year. But he's been letting me hunt alone for the past few years.”

I frown, turning that over in my head.

John Winchester has begun to trust his sons.

And he has abandoned them. Again.

I don't know which to focus on.

“What happened? To send you back?” Dean asks, suddenly and I breath a laugh.

They both ask too many questions and ones I don't know how to answer.

“I asked for a sign,” I say.

He frowns, “Like. Face on a tortilla type shit? Throwing you around the past twenty years seems a little much for a sign.”

I shrug, silent. Because I don't know and I don't have any answers for him.

He finishes his beer. “C’mon. Let's get some sleep.”

“I don't--”

He sighs and finishes my sentence, “Sleep. I know, Cas. But you can't just sit here all night. You're coming back to the motel with us.”

I open my mouth to argue and Dean shakes his head. “I haven't seen you in almost a year, Cas. Don't fight me on this.” he hesitates and then adds, so soft, “Please.”

So I nod and he rewards me with that smile that I don't see often enough the one that is as bright as his soul shines.

And I follow him home.

 

The next day, we hunt.

Sam is grumpy, resistant to Dean’s guidance. But Dean. Dean is patient and calm, listening to his brother bitch as he digs and teasing him until he smiles, jumping into the grave to take his turn and singing loud and off key while Sam sulks over a thermos of coffee.

It feels like every hunt we have ever been on, and different somehow.

Sam is quiet after.

As I stand awkward in the motel room and Dean throws their clothing and gear in his canvas bag and Sam loads the car. I go with Sam to stock up on food, while Dean showers and we come back to find him in a pair of jeans and a wet, bare chest and a phone pressed to his ear.

I stand there, distracted and flustered, watching the way beads of water trace down his chest. At the lack of scars there.

At his shoulder, so smooth and unmarked it yanks something angry and primal in my gut.

Dean Winchester should wear my mark.

And that. That is a ridiculous thought if ever I had one. He hangs up and twists to look at me, “Bobby might have a Wendigo for us--”

His words die as he catches sight of my face and I wonder what he sees there. What makes his eyes go wide and hopeful, what makes him whisper my name like a question.

I can't stop watching him.

_Why? Why am I here?_

His lips press against mine, and I _whimper_.

I whimper. An angel of the Lord, the one who stormed Hell itself to retrieve this soul, and trapped an archangel in holy fire.

His tongue tickles against the seam of my lips and I sigh as he licks into my mouth, as he presses against me and whispers my name. _Castiel. Castiel. Castiel._

When he pulls back, his smile is bright and sad and beautiful. “You asked what you are to me, Cas?” He smiles, and kisses me again, hard this time. Fierce. Demanding. His hands and lips and tongue everywhere and it’s everything I’ve wanted for so long, and not enough and— “This,” he whispers. “This is what you are. Everything.” 

My lips tingle and I touch them as a light fills the room and grief flares across his face.

The last thing I hear is don't. _Not yet. Cas._

The last thing I feel is his hand, clinging to mine.

And then I'm gone.

 

 


	3. January 24, 1989

When I land this time, I throw up.

The world is spinning, and for a endless moment, I’m still being thrown, lost and anchorless in an endless spin of time without sense or reason and Dean’s fingers are tight around mine, phantom pressure of the touch I want, and I can still _taste_ him.

Time travel is awful under my own power, but to be tossed without warning is—disconcerting.

I gag, and coffee, acrid and bitter, splatters the ground in front of me.

Coffee is much better being drunk instead of thrown up.

For a long moment, I rest there, hunched over on myself, my mouth a wash of bitter and that feels right, because what am I if not bitter.

_Why. Why?_

I can still taste Dean, his lips, and I wonder, stupidly, what he thinks of this, of me being ripped from him so abruptly.

Maybe it doesn’t bother him.

It’s what he’s used to—a few days, and then I’m gone, bouncing around his life like a stray bullet. I wonder if I do as much damage as a stray bullet.

I would assume yes, if only because I saw it, in his eyes.

The grief as I was pulled from him.

The wild hope and the frustrated anger in his voice, when he said, _you promised._

What did I promise him, and when?

And why? Why would I promise this Dean anything, when my heart belongs so completely and irrevocably to _my_ Dean, the one I left years and years in the future.

What changes?

_Why am I here? What am I supposed to learn from this?_

There is no answer, but I didn’t think there would be. My father has played a long and silent game for more years than I can count, and while he’s taken an interest in me—strange enough—he has remained silent and uninvolved throughout.

Whatever I am to learn from the past, I will learn it on my own, with no help from my silent father. I am merely the toy that he will throw and watch while I spin.

A morose thought.

I ignore it and stretch my grace.

He’s close. Of course.

If there is anything I know, it’s that my father is interested in me only because of my proximity to Dean Winchester and Sam.

I am not the one who is extraordinary. I never have been, and I can’t blame Father for his fascination with the brothers who so completely fascinate me as well.

Dean’s soul is agitated, worried, and getting closer. I realize, abruptly, what is happening, when I hear the steady roar of a familiar engine and it occurs to me that John Winchester is with his sons.

Without giving myself time to wonder why, I shift my grace and slip to a plane just beyond the visible eye of humans.

Here, but unseen.

And I watch, as John Winchester pulls up in the Impala, and Dean almost throws himself out of the car.

I almost stumble, then.

Because the Dean that I just left, the one of 1998 and fireworks, and intoxicating kisses—he wasn’t mine, but he wasn’t… _this_.

A boy, with blond hair and furious eyes and blood smeared down his side and—

Why the hell is Dean bleeding? I surge forward, a half-step, but John Winchester speaks first.

“You need to clean the blades.”

Dean bites his lip, and I know those eyes, that _soul_ enough to know he’s barely refraining from snapping at his father.

Which is odd, because Dean was the good son. It’s why Heaven wanted him as the Michael Sword.

The good son, loyal to an absent father.

“Yes, sir,” he says, his voice tight, and John pauses in the middle of unlocking the door to the motel room, turning a censorious look ove rhis shoudler to his son.

Dean doesn’t see it.

“Hey, Sammy. C’mon, buddy. We’re here.”

Oh.

_Oh._

I watch with John Winchester as Dean crouches by the side of the Impala, and speaks to his brother, soft and soothing.

Sam.

Oh, father. _Sam._

He is all floppy hair and sleepy eyes and limbs that are everywhere as he rolls up in the backseat of the Impala, his voice high and sleepy and so sweet it hits me like a fist to the gut.

He’s a baby. They are both babies.

“Don’t feel good, Dean,” Sam mutters, and Dean makes a low noise of agreement.

“I know, buddy. Let’s get you inside, in bed, ok? Can you do that for me?” Sam makes a noise that Dean must take as a yes, because he shifts up, standing.

John has already vanished into the motel, and I can hear, distantly, the clank of glass and the drone of the TV and paper rustling.

Sammy is sitting up in the backseat, and Dean is standing up and I feel a flash of _no_ before Sammy _screams_.

Dean goes white, and then he snatches up his brother, wraps him in a bone tight hug, taking quick steps to the motel.

Someone yells to _shut the fuck up_ and Dean’s shoulders go stiff, and then the door slams shut behind him.

Sam is still screaming, this shrill panic, and Dean pries him off, and shakes him. Once, hard. “Not mine, Sam. The blood isn’t mine.”

The screams cut off, abruptly, and Dean lets out the breath he’s holding. Stares at Sam. “If you lay down, and stay quiet, I’ll show you. Ok?”

Sam’s eyes are still wild, still _scared_ and he whimpers when Dean pries him off his hand, and nudges him back on the bed. Dean pauses in the act of reaching for his shirt, and gives Sam a sharp look.

With a huff, the younger boy collapses on the bed and glares.

Dean rewards him with a quick smile and then strips to his boxers, and grabs a wet washcloth, wiping away the blood that’s seeped through and stained his side. Then he spreads his arms wide and gives Sam a smirk that I know. Even on a face that is so young it seems unreal, I know that smirk.

“See, Sammy? Told you, I’m fine.” Sam gives him a tremulous look that will one day bloom into full on puppy eyes, that pleading stare that can make Dean do anything Sam wants.

Sam may not know it now, but that look, cast Dean’s way a million times, is why Dean is willing to sell his soul and go to hell. Because Dean can’t imagine a word that does not contain Sam, with his wide smiles and infectious laugh and sweet love for knowledge.

Now though. Now Dean is siting on the bed next to his brother, coaxing him down to sleep, his hands gentle in Sam’s hair and his voice a low croon of nonsense and safety.

Until Sam is sleeping, curled against Dean on the bed, his whole body a loose curl of exhaustion and peace.

They don’t look like this, in my time. Too much has happened. Sam doesn’t know how to be that kind of peaceful, now.

“You know better than to go to Sam covered in blood.” John says, finally, and Dean cuts his eyes toward his father.

“If you listened when I told you he was sick, I wouldn’t have had to.”

“That werewolf doesn’t give a damn that your brother is sick,” John snaps. “You do the job anyway.”

Dean’s jaw goes hard and angry as he glares. “That were wasn’t the only one who didn’t care.”

John’s eyes go flinty. “You got something to say, big man?”

“We _knew_ where the were was. We could have dropped Sam off and let him get some sleep before we went for the kill. You know we could have. You just didn’t _care._ _”_

John looks as started as I feel, and then, “I don’t like your attitude, Dean.”

Dean snorts his opinion of that, and stalk to the shower. “I don’t like yours much either, Dad.”

The door slams behind him and it cuts off whatever response John was going to make.

Probably just as well.

“God, I don’t know if that’s just him being a fucking teenager, or if this is Cas’s fault.” I flinch, hearing my name in John Winchester’s mouth.

How the hell does he know who I am? Did Dean tell him?

“Wish you were here, Mary,” he mutters. “God knows I could use the help.”

 

When Dean emerges from the shower, John is gone and Sam is sleeping, snoring softly as he does. Dean checks on him and then gets himself dressed and grabs the dirty knives John left out for him. A sharpening stone. He flicks on the TV and glances at the clock, and then, surprisingly.

A smile blooms and he makes a little hum in his throat that is all happiness and peace.

“Almost time, Cas.” He mutters, and goes to work on the blades.

And I’m shocked enough that I shift to his plane.

“Almost time for what?” I demand, curious and confused.

Dean laughs, finishing wiping down the long machete before tossing it one side and dipping his rag in the bowl of water he’s made for this purpose.

“You said you’d be here.” His head tilts up and he grins at me. “Hey, Cas.”

And despite the oddness of all of this, of Dean himself and the anger I’m still feeling for his father who deserted him to drown his sorrows in a bottle, I feel a smile rise to answer him.

“Is today special?” I ask, curious and Dean’s eyes flick, hurt, before understanding fills them. “You don’t know when you are, do you, Cas?”

I shake my head, and settle on the end of the bed, taking the clean blade and sharpening stone. Dean grins and says, “It’s my birthday, dude. What did you bring me?”

Panic flares through me and Dean laughs. “Relax, Cas. I don’t actually expect you to bring me anything.”

“But you are alone,” I say, slowly. “That is not how birthdays are meant to be spent.”

Dean shrugs. “Not alone. Got you. And Sammy.”

I look at where Sam is sleeping, still. “He’s sick.”

Dean goes tense on the bed, and his gaze is worried as he watches his brother. “It’s not a big deal. Just the flu. He’s a tough kid. I probably gave him a heart attack, scaring him all covered in blood.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

Dean flinches. “You were watching.”

“It seemed best, to not reveal myself with your father here.”

Dean laughs, suddenly, “He’s gonna be pissed he still doesn’t get to meet you.”

I glance at Dean, surprised. “Would you like me to stay and meet him?”

“God, no.” Dean blurts, looking appalled. “Dad dislikes you enough without actually having to deal with all of…you.”

I smile at that, and Dean relaxes.

He never had any tact, and apparently that was true for the past as it is now.

“So where ya been, Cas?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly and Dean considers me. Stands up and goes to the little sink, making a cup of coffee in a tiny pot on the counter. He thrusts it at me without a word and resumes his spot on th bed, cleaning the weapons.

“You are very good at that,” I say, softly.

It’s something I managed to forget. I don’t know how, because Dean is a caregiver.

“Good at what?” Dean says, startled.

“At taking care of others,” I say, cupping the coffee and breathing in the rich, dark scent.

Dean laughs. “You know I just spent the past three hours killing and burning monsters, right? Not exactly how you take care of folks.”

“Being an exceptional hunter doesn’t make you less of a caring person, Dean,” I insist. “You’ve cared for me each and every time I’ve seen you on this—whatever this is. And you are caring for Sam, now, even though it is your birthday and you should, by rights, be allowed to celebrate as a child of—”

I flounder in my tirade, unsure suddenly of his age.

“Ten, dude. I’m ten. It’s January 24, 1989.”

Ten. He is so young, to be caring for his brother.

But he was young when his mother died and John became this shell of a man that Dean once called father.

“Dean,” I whisper and his eyes go wide. Scared. He scrubs, almost furiously, at the length of the silver blade he’s holding and says, “If you want to be useful, Cas, go get some shit for us to eat. Just cuz Dad didn’t remember and Sam is sick, doesn’t mean we should celebrate a little.”

He flashes me a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes, and I go silent. Then nod. “As you wish, Dean.”

 

I come back with a bag of cheeseburger and greasy fries, a cherry pie and cold root beer. Dean crows over it for a minute, as he snatches it from my hand, and it rouses Sam, who gives me a sweet, sleepy smile. “You’re here. Dean didn’t think you’d come,” he says, words slurry and tired, and I smile at him. “Knew you would, though. You’d never disappoint Dean.” I glance at the other boy, and he’s flushed, but smiling at his brother.

There’s an ease to this that leaves me aching. Dean, laughing and bullying me into pulling off my coat and relaxing on the bed while he turns on bad TV. Sam curled between us, leaning into me like an overly warm puppy, all greasy hands and lank limbs.

As the night winds out, and we sink deeper into this lazy, stolen moment, I finally look at Dean. “When will John come back?”

Dean shrugs. Completely unconcerned. He adjust Sam a little, and the younger Winchester snuffles against my side.

For all that he is relaxed and happy, Dean hasn’t stopped watching his brother at all.

“Tomorrow. Maybe. Maybe the next day. I won’t hunt until Sam feels better and Dad knows it—so he’ll spend his time at a bar or with someone more entertaining then us. When Sam feels better, we’ll hunt again.

He says it casually. Like its nothing at all to remark upon. Like being deserted by his father with a sick brother is not something that should concern him.

And maybe he’s right.

Because Dean has been taking care of Sam long enough that it doesn’t bother him.

Because Dean _can_ take care of Sam.

It’s something I know as well as I know his soul. Knowledge as comfortable as my blade in my hand.

Dean is cares for Sam. Always. Completely. Selflessly.

I stare at him for long enough that his young eyes flick to me, and he grins, unconcerned and unaware of my thoughts.

He can’t know what I haven’t told him.

I asked for a sign and my father threw me into the past and I am facing a child wearing Dean’s face, and still.

Even now, he is a hunter. Brilliant and sharp and so damn careful with his brother that it hurts something, deep within me.

I don’t know what it means. This sign that I begged for that makes so little sense.

So I settle deeper into the bed, and watch the cartoons on the TV, and listen to him laugh. And I trust that eventually, this will make sense. But for now—I enjoy this stolen moment in time with them.


End file.
